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Competition for Jolt/Dew/Coffee? 215

Posted by CmdrTaco from the this-doesn't-bode-well dept.
bl00d writes "Noticed this advertised in "Maxim" magazine, then checked out their website. The caffiene this stuff is made with is 2.5 times stronger than that in Coffee/Tea/Soft drinks. Their "Model" is rather scary, but the drink sounds like the stuff for coding marathons." The scariest part is the name: The stuff is called Bawls. I guess its easier than disolving penguin mints in my morning expresso.
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Competition for Jolt/Dew/Coffee? More

Competition for Jolt/Dew/Coffee?

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  • Mmmm... guarana root (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    i like the warning: Natural Diuretic. This means that the effects of alcohol will feel stronger if you use it as a mixer? sign me up.

    I'm still a die hard, though. Nothing's more intense than slammin a Dew. It's totally in my face. To the Extreme.

  • Instead of school shootings... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...derranged American kids will be drinking Bawl's and eating Pop Rocks in crowded rooms full of their school mates, taking many of them out without firing a shot.

  • Reality Check here folks. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I used to consume massive amounts of caffeine back in college. I even tried some caffeine-pills once...

    All I can say from the experience is that it was very hard to code when my hands wouldn't stop shaking... (I didn't OD. I just had a low body mass.)

    Later on, I came to realize that I could not function (think) without consuming substantial quantities caffeine. My mind would just shut down. I couldn't add 2 + 2.

    So I started adding up how much caffeine I was actually consuming. It came out to the equivalent of about 3 liters of coke a day.

    I quit cold turkey. Had a really *REALLY* bad couple of days. And then things got a lot better. And for some strange reason, my resting pulse dropped from 110 to 80 all by itself.

    Mind you, I still load up on sugars while hacking... I just make a point to use non-caffeinated fruit juices...

    Still, I am constantly amazed by people who insist on taking the absolute maximum of a drug. The "Lets figure out how much will kill me and then back off a little" philosophy. Even when I take something like acetaminophen, I intentionally take half the recommended dose. That's enough for me. Why should I take more?

  • What's even better than colas (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What I do before coding is smoke a few crack rocks, and then shoot up with some freebase coke. After that, I eat as much amphetamines as I can, and then I can code like a madman.

    OH yeah, I was just kidding about that. But, this seems to be the mentality of "xTr33m /0ding d00ds".

    No offense, really, but I think, if you're tired, sleep. Wake up and begin coding the next day, espically if you are working for an evil corporation!

    I always have fresher ideas after sleeping anyway, jittery hands, sweaty palms, and racing thoughts never help.

    Not everyone needs to be a crack-head Microsoft coder! =)

  • Re:Gotta try...jolt and grain (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    For people who want to make really stupid decisions at double normal speed.

    Official drink of Microsoft?

  • Yeah. It's cola with a smooth, chemical taste. Oh boy. Pepsi forever.
    ----------------- ------------ ---- --- - - - -
  • Caffine (if I could spell it right,) Dosen't destroy your body, it messes with your head and makes your body weaker after the effect wears off, but after a good sleep your fine again.

    Haven't you ever heard the saying what dosen't kill you only makes your stronger? :)
  • You must leave on the east cost, I don't think their are more then two people in south west Flordia that read slashdot.
  • >Mixed with alcohol...

    Wouldn't caffeine and alcohol kinda cancel each other out?

    Alex Bischoff
    ---

  • Adderall has some nasty side effects. At certain levels, you start to experience ticks, I personally get frigging eye tick at 30 mg. It also kills your appetite (which some people would consider good) and basically prevents sleep while you are using it :)

    Dexydrine lasts almost as long (8-10 hours as opposed to 10-12 hours) and doesn't have as many side effects.

    They also make a time-release Ritalin which supposedly lasts 8-10 hours as well.

    Also, these pills aren't cheap. 10 mg adderall pills run about $1/pill, but they definately help me focus and stay awake. They aren't that strong, I mean if I don't sleep, 10 mg of Adderall isn't going to keep me awake. Some people get perscribed as much as 50 mg doses.

    Also, remember these are all amphetamines, which means they are government controlled and regulated. It is not easy to find a doctor which will diagnose you for ADD, I personally had to go to an ADD institute (basically shrinks) which ran $200/visit.

    --
  • Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:

    "We have the tastiest bawls on the market."

    "Nobody will care if your breath smells like our bawls."

    "Special flavor, limited time only. Salty chocolate bawls."

    "A mouthfull of bawls in the morning can perk up your entire day."

    "Tell your mom, you want some bawls."

    "Tell your dad, your mom buys bawls when you go out shopping."

    "Bawls, share them with a friend."

    "Bawls, 2.5 times the active ingredient of the competition."

    Hot Dog ventors crying out "Bawls! Bawls! Get your frosty bawls here!"

    At McDonalds "You want bawls with that?"

    At Burger King "The bawls combo meal, 25% more meat than McDonalds"

    Imagine endorsements...

    Dennis Rodman "After a hard game, there's nothing I like more than sitting in the locker room enjoying the refreshing taste of bawls."

    Rosie O'Donnel "Bawls, I never tried that, but if Tom Cruise asks me, I might."

    Jim J Bullock "Bawls! I've been a fan since day one!"

    Michael Jackson "Um, Uh, Ya know, woooo, BAWLS! Hee Hee, BAWLS!"

    Chef from South Park (Isaac Hayes)"Come on children, gather 'round and get a good taste of bawls."

    Bill Clinton "I tasted bawls once or twice, but I didn't swallow."

    I have to stop here or I'll go on forever.

    LK
  • It is not the root that is used, but the fruit of the plant. Besides the guaranine, the fruit also contains fatty acids that delay the absorption of guaranine in the body making the effect last longer. Btw, you should be warned to use guarana because it stresses your libido, and after having tried it... I agree. When Josta was first introduced, some people who knew about the effect had opened a website warning people about the effects.

    For me, ginseng has been my primary stimulant ever since my stomach complained about my consumption of latte and Jolt.

  • You speak rightly. The act is as important as the substance.

    I tried not doing the usual get-the-coffee-right-after-I-get-up a few days ago. Didn't get the legendary headaches, but I was an absolute dumbass. Forgot keys, wrote some REALLY bad code, and was generally useless. The experiment lasted until noon.

    And what could be better than that smell right after you pour the water onto the grounds in the press?

    Time for a fresh cup.

  • Maxim is a nasty nasty magazine. The men's Cosmopolitan. Ladies, if you see a man reading a Playboy magazine, he is either pleasing his asthetic taste or enjoying well written articles. If you see a man reading a Maxim, he is either curious at a magazine he hasn't seen before or he's a sick bastard who is out for (wishes he could get) bootie-play(TM). Hide your nipples. (/moral indignation>

    As for the Bawls, I enjoy the amount of Coke I consume as well as its caffinated effect. This new drink seems to either remove one or overdo the other. Not for me thanks. Prediction: will recieve little to no shelf space in short order.

  • Yeah. I'm Brazilian as well, and we have several different brands of Guarana soft drink. The stuff tastes like water with a LOT of sugar added. Yet it doesn't have nearly as much caffeine as a good'ole cup of Brazilian coffee! :)

    On the other hand, guarana root, available as a bitter powder, has enough caffeine to make cocaine feel like kids' candy.

    Later,
    --
    Joao (That's Portuguese for "he who never sleeps")
  • This seems to be pretty rare in the US - I couldn't find it in San Jose or San Diego this year - but it's the UK Clubland drink of choice, mixed with Vodka. Basically, it has (from http://www.red-bull.com ) :

    * Taurin and glucuronolacton (natural and body-own agents, which serve as metabolism transmitters)
    * caffeine
    * b-complex vitamins
    * carbon hydrates (carbohydrates? ;) )

    This stuff is serious. I've had Jolt (bit hard to get in the UK) and Jolt has *nothing* on Red Bull. Two red bulls will get you 24 hour uptime with no concentration loss (drink when tired: repeat as necessary. Kicks in in ~15 minutes). I keep a can in the car in case I start to fall asleep on long drives.

    With alcohol you get to be wide awake and drunk. Have too many (5 in one night) and from personal experience I got to be sick on a bouncer (and then got thrown out of the club, not suprisingly), went home with someone I really should have avoided, and then couldn't sleep for the whole night (no, it wasn't the girl... I desparately needed sleep at that point).

    This and Pepsi Max (no more caffeine than normal cola as far as I know, but a nice taste) are the official drinks of the empeg, and they're always in my fridge ;)

    Hugo
  • Interesting. Red bull only lists the caffeine amount as a percentage on the ingredients list: it has 0.03% caffeine, which turns out to be 75mg on the 250ml cans. Other 'active' ingredients include Taurine (1000mg/250ml) and Glucuronolactone (600mg/250ml).

    The amounts vary from country to country according to local regulations. Sounds an awful lot like pushing it to the legal maximums without becoming a prescription drug to me ;)

    Hugo
  • The whole subject of Bawls was brought up on the majority of web sites that go for that sort of thing six months ago, if not further in the past. I find it ironic that people are still making silly jokes about it. Sure, it's a wacky name. Yes, it comes in an interesting bottle. But it's a beverage, you drink it. Get over it. :)
    I was always under the impression that trendy beverages originate either on the east or west coast or in another country, meaning by the time it makes it to the midwest US, it's probably not really news. And I hate to say it, but Bawls has been fairly easy to find in Iowa for quite a long time. The real irony is I was just finishing off a bottle as I read this post.
  • some ideas...

    "Nothing like kicking back and wrapping your lips around some Bawls."

    "Bawls... put them in your head(mouth,etc..)"

    "Time to suck down some Bawls".

    "Keep your hands off my Bawls!" ...along the lines of "leggo my eggo".

    "To avoid leakage, please don't shake your Bawls."

    "For the ultimate in refreshement, go out and grab some Bawls."

    and so on. Someone must be on crack over there...

  • This is so awful... Terrible. Probably one of those products which will dissapear when people start ODing on it.

    When will it be in variety stores :-)

  • They're lots of authoritative sources on the subject available online; I came across the Coffee and Caffeine FAQ a while ago, and just found http://www.coffeescience.org/ [coffeescience.org], to give only examples...
  • That stuff has been around for a year or two. The scariest thing about it is the advertisments. A picture of a women ( close to naked ) riding a huge donkey with a subtitle saying "She's got Bawls!"
  • Not bloody likely. Caffeine is considered one of the safest drugs on the market because the LD50 is so abnormally high. (LD50 is the typical measure of toxicity in drugs, the amount of the drug which would kill 50 percent of the subjects given that amount, typically tested on rats.) Caffeine has an LD50 of about 150 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Supposing that this stuff is as powerful as coffee, you'd have to drink 50 to 100 bottles of it before you started getting into the lethal range.

    However, speaking from experience, non-lethal doses (in the 500 to 2000mg range) can be extremely unpleasant. The hallucinations are very much not fun, and the cardiac arrythmia can be most disturbing. But at least it won't kill ya.

    Big Fat Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, so don't even think of using this information as any sort of accurate reference. Don't even think about taking any kind of drugs based on my advice. You may wind up very silly-looking, very dead, or quite possibly both. I got this information from another possibly inaccurate source. Don't go messing around with your body chemistry and then come whining to me about it.

  • Gee... And I thought I was the only slashdotter living out here in the "breadbasket of America". Maybe this state isn't as backwards as I thought it was. But yeah, I've been seeing this stuff in HyVee for several months now, and I'm not too impressed.

    Now, Jones soda, there's some good stuff. Green apple is my fave, with cherry a close second.

  • I don't know what you're talking about, but here in Sweden Pepsi Max is a sugar free pepsi that's supposed to taste like real pepsi, but doesn't. (Not that real pepsi taste so good either). It does not contain very much caffeine, perhaps a bit more than regular pepsi, but not more than Jolt.

    It uses the slogan "Maximum Taste - No Sugar". The taste is mostly aspartam, as far as I can tell.
    /El Niño
  • This stuff has been out for a looooonnng time. (In fact I submited a link about it over 6 months ago, funny how something is not important one day then the next it is...) It is great, it taste wonderfull and WILL keep you up at night. My mother in law works graveyard shift (10pm-6am), if she drinks one of these at midnight, at 6 in morn she is still wide awake (otherwise she has a hard time staying awake on the ride home).

    And the company is good too. I saw this stuff advertised on TV a long time ago, thought it looked good, made a special trip to the store that they said sold it, and no employe there had heard of it. I send Bawls a e-mail, next day the local distributer calls me up, finds out what store did not have it, promises to make sure they will in the future (and they did start carring it the next week, I shop their all the time now). Plus, I got a e-mail from Bawls asking me for my address, I send it off to them, they send me a free 6-pack so I can try it out. Not bad for a little company.

    Only thing i can say bad about this drink is it is not on sale enough. Most times it is selling for $1.29 to $1.39 a bottle, and when it is on sale it is $.99 a bottle. Plus, the stores that sell it around here are pretty stupid, when it is on sale the signs say "Bawls Water".

    There name is great as well, once my motherinlaw was with us, we stop in at a gass station and she goes in wanting to buy some "Bawls" (I am sure you can see where this is going). She wonders around the store, does not see any and goes to leave, the guy at the counter says "can I help you find something?". Without thinking she just says "No, you dont got no Bawls." The guy got *pissed* and started cussing her out before she could explain. she just left in a hurry.

    Great drink, just dont take one before bedtime.

    Elwood (I got Bawls)
  • I'm with you... I recently realized that I was totally dependent on caffeine (based on the fact that I drank a pint of Dew in the morning to wake up, had to drink more Dew and Coke and Dr. Pepper constantly at work to stay awake, and was completely incapable of concentrating on anything, and wasn't sleeping at all well) and went cold turkey for a week. I had massive withdrawal headaches, but it was worth it. Now I drink caffeine again, but only in moderation (1-2 sodas a day, tops) and am sleeping much better and able to actually get work done.

    Caffeine poisoning just isn't worth it in the long run.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
  • Jolt & 151....mmmm....

    Wired & wasted!
  • Try using fresh coffee instead. There is no such thing as vintage coffee, as some people seem to believe.
  • Replacement for coffee? Nonsense.

    People have always been proclaiming the death of coffe. "Tea is so much so and so stronger than coffee" they say. "Some stupid corporate bullshit soda is so much stronger than coffee".

    I give those people my coffee. They fall down. They twich for a few moments before finally giving in to total cardiac arrest.

    Do not fuck with me about coffee.

    I repeat do not fuck with me about coffee.
  • I'm not sure whether this is just local to Australia, but there is a drink called Red Eye Gold which contains guarana, caffiene, and ten other types of crud, sickly sweet, and pretty much consciousness distilled. I imagine this Bawls stuff is similar.

    Its the kind of thing i only take occasionally because i know anything this powerful has to be way addictive. Anyone know the effects of prolonged guarana usage?
  • I hear ya. As soon as I see a barely dressed woman modeling for a product I understand the following things.

    1) It's a new product trying to gain customers.
    2) Their advertisers are as dumb as rocks
    3) The product isn't worth my time if they feel that they must try to catch my attention with a barely clothed woman, probably because there product isn't that good.

    And then I disregard the product entirely and move on.
  • Would this be the same thing as "Pepsi One" here in the states? Do they have ridiculous commercials trying to hype up a sugar-free drink as a cool exciting thing to drink? *grin*

    logan

  • Josta soda has been available at least in the SF area for a couple years. And it's a guarana (sp) based product.

  • Heat table sugar on your stove (students; that means hotplate or "BIC" array, or even candels), in a double boiler, (the temperature it burns at is extremely close to the temperature it "cooks" at) and it first turns to a clear liquid. But then it turns brown (becomes caramel). Why?


    I'm neither a chemist nor a cook but it sounds like the difference between melting and burning. Carmel is burnt sugar.
  • Had a penguin mint once. Tasted kinda funny, so I looked at the box. Nutrasweet. Spit it out, still had a headache the rest of the day. Half the people I know are violently allergic to Nutrasweet, and I'm just mildly so in comparison.
  • > Any ginko users? Have you noticed any difference in your mental stimulation?

    Definitely. That and Chromium Picolinate (sp?) was what I took to stay awake when I was a tape ape, mounting tapes all night long. Much less edg than caffiene, did not wear off nearly as quickly. But long term, it may have been just as bad for me, where I became very emotionally unstable, though severe depression did not help either.

    Caffeine gives me a short boost in that hyperfocused attention span that I need when coding, but in the long run it's destructive. I've actually written better code when drunk, but that's not really well-accepted at work.
  • That's scary ... that's how strychnine works too. So hey, all the hax0r d00dz who think caffeine is free energy may as well take strychnine.
  • Yeah uh. oh you're an AC. not worth the time.

    Rob, I think "coward" has lost its impact. How about Anonymous Waste Of Time?
  • Exactly what I do, I'm rarely if ever hung over, regardless of how much I drink, since I try to keep some gatorade on hand in my fridge. After I get done partying or whatever, I drink a 32 oz. gatorade and go to bed. May have to get up to piss a few times in the night, but no hangover in the morning!

    Heinlein advocated (in Job: A Comedy of Justice [amazon.com]) taking a shower as hot as you can possibly stand, then quickly throwing the temperature controls to ice cold. I've tried this, and it does seem to work, at the very least, it's like a reset switch for your nervous system. Try to keep your screaming down to a minimum for those who do have the hangovers though.

    He then suggested a Bloody Mary for afterwards, and I believe that the axiom about the "hair of the dog that bit you" has been proven to ease hangover suffering. It had something to do with how the liver breaks down alcohol, and that the second stage of alcohol breakdown makes you feel crappy, but as long as you keep your liver doing some of the first-stage breakdown, you still feel okay.

  • Nope, not the only /.er in Iowa -- I moved back about a month ago, after a 5 year absence -- HyVee by me has Bawls right next to the cooler stuffed with bulk frozen steaks....scary
  • heh its not, this drink is to classy for that, and too expensive, it wont make you jitter butit will damn good make you not be tired, I keep all the bottles, the bottles aret he shit, they are the reason i buy this shit... (caffeine has no effect on me) Most my friends drink bawls no one ever gets jolted, i myself have no efffect at all because ive been drinking and ingesting large ammounts of caffeine since i was a baby so its lost effect, its a damn curse!!! heyh, well in 2600's issue of like 3 quarter, in 1997 they have an article called hack your head, look into that article for some cool and safe recipes to keep ya up all night. by the way I have the poster at my wall, the one with the naked chick on the horse, it just makes me love my bawls...
  • I can see my chest moving right now, and I'm doing something like 78 beats/min (is that too high for just sitting in front of a computer?). I'm skinny though and not in pain...
  • Is there any particular brand of Guarana powder that we should look for? I wonder if you can get that in the US? It seems a lot safer than smoking crank...

    I wonder if the truck drivers and bikers know about this?
  • >it tastes like shit.. not that I eat shit mind you. :)

    ...but you've tasted it? :p



  • Drink name: Jumpstart
    Recipe: Equal parts grain alcohol, Jolt Cola
    Purpose: For people who want to make really stupid decisions at double normal speed.
  • Not doubting your knowledge, but is Josta still being made? From what I've read, they stopped marketing it, which I thought really sucked. I certainly can't find it around here (DC).

    I thought this stuff was just great. And it wasn't because of the supposed-aphrodisiacal effects of guarana, either. It was simply a good, fruity soda.

    If you can find it, I'll pay for it + shipping... :D
  • i tried Pepsi MAX when i was in Italy this past March. it tasted like a cross between Pepsi and Pepsi One.... it didn't hit me as anything that had caffeine, though....

    when i was in college, i used to go to my four-hour Electronics lectures with eight (8) cans of Jolt. I'd start out by chugging the first two before class started, then nurse the remaining six over the course of the class. on days when i felt i needed to "cut back", i substituted Pepsi for Jolt. did Jolt about three days out of five.

    right now, i have between two and eight of those little "demi-tasse" cups of espresso every day...

    hmmmm... maybe i'll cut back a little before i get cancer or something. nah. :)
  • We we *lucky* enough to be a test market at my school when that stuff came out, and the pepsi guys came into one of my classes and gave us all free josta and shirts and hats. I took one sip and gave it to the first person who would take it. I think it is still around in limited quanities, in the coolers at gas stations it never took up more than one or two slots.
  • Definitely Quakers here :)

    On another note, has anyone seen Bawls in Canada? I've heard Blue talking about it for ages, yet I've never seen it anywhere here. Not that I'm going to cry over it, I'm just curious.
  • Reminiscent of the "Dicken's Cider" jokes. Put them together and you'd have quite a combination.

    "I really like to have some ice-cold Bawls with my Dicken's Cider."
  • Much higher coffeine concentration is also true
    of the "Energy Drinks", eq Red Bull. BTW the
    original Austrian Red Bull can says "Do not mix
    with alcohol" in small print. (Everybody does of
    course) I think this is due to some amino acid
    that improves alcohol absorbtion into blood.
  • Ever wonder how the sys admin running the systems that the /.'d sites are on, feel? heh. It's taking 4 mins to load /. and this just aint cool.

    Remind me to avoid 4 million caffeine indulged fellow nerds next time :D

  • I used to take psuedophedrine HCL (generic Sudafed) when I had a lot of sinus headaches. I would conteract the slight sleepiness by taking half doses and drinking lots of Coke. I felt I was "stepping into" my monitor and just coding like crazy. No distractions, no interruptions to my train of thought.

    However, I did jump a foot after a co-worker touched my shoulder to get my attention!

    Devin
    ps. I also love Bailey's and Coffee.
  • If you read carefully, it says that the *form* of caffeine is 2.5 times stronger than normal. The actual caffeine content is similar to a cup of coffee -- just like jolt.

  • I've been brewing iced tea lately with Celestial Seasonings honey lemon ginseng [celestialseasonings.com] tea. It gives me a boost without getting me too jumpy. My hands start to shake if I drink too much coffee.

  • Living in South Florida (home of Bawls), I found the stuff a few years back.

    It tastes better than coffee, has a cool blue glass bottle, is cheaper than crack [virtualcrack.com], allows one to walk around proclaiming that one has 'just sucked down some Bawls' and is otherwise pretty darn nifty stuff.

    The downside -- you knew there had to be a downside, right? -- is that it's mucho very expensive a lot (for the cost of a 12oz bottle of Bawls, I can buy an entire pot of coffee) and is hard to find.

    If you haven't had any Bawls, give it a shot. If you can't get it, you're not missing much.

    InitZero

  • I always thought the way to get yer caffiene going was to brew a pot of coffee with Water Joe (or Krank20, or whatever they call caffienated water where you come from). That's where you really get your BANG...
  • Wired and Wasted is right.. caffine and alcohol make a nice combination.
    I once consumed a bottle of cheap wine and a few litres of coffee in the same night. I stopped drinking (both) around 1:00am but was still drunk and quite awake at around 7:00am.
  • I read a comparison chart of the caffeine in drinks. Coffee and tea were at the top, Jolt had about a third the caffeine of coffee, and Coke had half the caffeine of Jolt. So which one is this new guarana drink comparing itself to?

  • This drink sounds like pisswater compared to E-Maxx.. The ultimate beverage for programmers. :)

    No..I dont work for them. :) I've had a couple cans of it..they usually sell the stuff around college campuses. One can of E-Maxx will keep you wide-open awake for 10-15 hours (not to mention you feel like you could bench-press a truck)..... but not without consequences -- For every hour of sleep you manage to avoid, you can expect to two hours to a rock-bottom depression to follow it. E-Maxx burns the shit out of your brain top to bottom. Sometimes this sort of "penalty" is worth it..but not often. I would only consider drinking E-Maxx again if it were a total last resort. Anyone got a URL for this drink?


    Bowie
    PROPAGANDA [themes.org]
  • I've had an unopened bottle of that stuff on my desk for months now. I'm too scared to drink it because the bottle looks like a big nubby dildo.
  • I remember when Jolt came out, there were mass predictions that coffee would become a thing of the past. Same when Red Bull came out (you do get that in the US, don't you?). I say now what I said then; nothing will replace coffee. Ever. It may have less caffeine that some of the funky drinks out there, and it may be trivial when compared to caffeine tablets, but coffee was, and always will be, the drink of choice. It's not just the drinking; it the wondering which machine to use; the cool-looking percolator, the fancy expresso maker, the baby expresso maker, the cafetiere... then there's the pouring into the huge Babylon 5 mug, the inhalation of that heady aroma, the first sip... pardon me, I'm getting aroused. Gotta go.
  • Old news in Brazil... we have here the best soft drink in the world, and it is called Guaraná Champagne Antarctica: http://www.antarctica.com.br./english/reguana.htm
    Even if it is .htm (argh!), its mascot is... a penguin!.

    Coca-Cola is for soft drinks what rWindows is for OSs. Guaraná is the real thing -- just like GNU.

  • Anyone here have access to Pepsi MAX? I drank a can or two whil in europe and it was the strongest friggin thing I ever had.

    I don't know about Europe, but down here in New Zealand, Pepsi MAX is caffine free.

  • Yeah. It's cola with a smooth, chemical taste. Oh boy. Pepsi forever.

    Well, for pure, unadulterated chemical enjoyment, you need to get yourself some Tab...about $2.49/6 from your local Publix or Winn-Dixie (or Albertson's, if that's your thing). It is simultaneously so disgusting yet compelling that I must drink it.

    Mike
    --

  • I live in West Central Florida (Bay area)...we have the University of South Florida, though. Don't ask me why -- I'm so tired of people thinking that it's in Miami, or that it is Florida Southern College. So now we could have some really lame parties for which we would all have to drive a really long way.

    Mike
    --

  • I grew up in Ecuador [ecuador.com] and guarana is very popular there. Mixed with alcohol, there is an increased effect, if that's your ultimate goal. I look forward to tasting this stuff.
  • I read a study once that determined that diuretics increased the amount of the subjects urine. This had a psychological effect on their "drunkeness." Kind of like having a keg party with O'Douls.
  • I love your perspective....

    if you do no want to sleep drink some guarana powder stirred in water . It will make you stay awaken for 3 or 4 days .

    Do you do this often?
  • ... as long as we know you're kidding? (Bambi?)

    What's with this whole retro-PC thing anyway. I'm starting to see it all over. I'll admit some the the PC stuff goes way over-board, but I don't think this is the way to get back at them.

    I guess they're only targeting less than 50% of the population. That's marketing for ya.I'll stick with my mocha, thanx.
  • I drink my Dew everyday like a good little coder, but I don't like the side effects. I've quit and had the three-day headache from withdrawals many times. Unfortunately, I always end up back on the Dew train. This time I'm trying to slowly reduce my intake, rather than quitting cold turkey. It's a slow painful death..

  • Nope, You just get terribly tense AND you haven't
    got the slightest sense of balans / concentration left.
  • Here are the best items to have on hand while
    staying up at night coding:

    1) Espresso machine from Starbucks
    2) Espresso roast whole beans
    3) Burr grinder
    4) Chocolate covered espresso beans
    5) Penguin caffeinated peppermints

    -Mike
    "there's too much blood in my caffeine system"

    P.S. - it's spelled eSpresso.
  • I wish somehow we could stimulate ADH production when drinking. No urine->no dehydration->no hangover!

    And no detoxification! Alcohol is a diuretic for a reason! It's a poision.

    Don't get my wrong, I like alcohol, especially vodka, since you stay drunk for quite a while, and it has lesser diuretic properties.
  • It wasn't this drink, but 2 guarana pills, washed down with an mocha espresso. My heart rate jumped up to about 200 bpm. I could actually see my chest moving. And it hurt.

    I just layed down and forced myself to sleep it off. There was no coding that day.

    Now, I just hang on the edge of an over dose of Penguin Mints. About 20 a day. If my heart hurts one day, I just cut back for two.

    I don't think I need this stuff.
  • Ginko and a hand full of Penguin Mints... Makes for an interesting combination. I had taken ginko in the past, but never had much effect. One day before a review class for Bio 201, I just desided to try the ginko thing one more time. This time I took 3 times what was recommended, and my usual 20 Penguin Mints. Lets just say that the descriptions of plants reproductive organs my teacher was giving in his lecture became a little to visual for me. Though I did remember everything for the test, and still to this day (6 months later), and probally for the rest of my life. Freaky.
  • Okay after my last 3 posts on abusing non-controlled dangerous substances. I will agree with you. Sleep is a good thing too. No matter how much I wire my body up, in the end I always end up crashing. And before I crash, I usually end up doing stupid things.

    rm /etc/rc.d/rc.M
    -is NOT-
    vi /etc/rc.d/rc.M

    Yes, I did that. No, I don't run Slackware, I just built my own install and happen to have been raised on Slack.
  • No, diuretic just means it'll make you piss more. Mix it with alcohol, which is also a "natural diuretic", and you're just asking for an amazing hangover. Note: Hangovers are caused by dehydrating your body. To avoid them. Don't passout. Stay awake until you start to sober up a little bit. Drink as much pure water as you can. Go to sleep. Wake up and make lots of noise for the benefit of your friends who didn't follow these instructions.
  • Maybe i'm just naive, but I'm a pretty serious athelete and until recently I've really lived in my own little world where the good atheletes are clean. I've done a couple of road cycle races and it is insane at which level winning becomes important enough for atheletes to take drugs. I really thought it was only a problem in the elite ranks for some time but highschool kids are injecting EPO and doping.

    When are hackers going to take up this delightful habbit? There are already a significant number of pot smokers amongst us, I think that's mostly just a social thing. Nootropics have been popular in some circles for a long time, I've never associated them with hackers since they are mostly just myths. Combine our love of caffine with the the demand for higher performance and we've got a community ripe for drugs. I've never taken EPO or doped but if you've got a marathon session coming up, doping and increasing the red blood count while injesting a good batch of some "high octane" caffinated beverage could produce better effects, you'd be perked up and you'd have more physical energy and energy to think with.

    I've also known bikers who, for the final kick, take a couple shots of some triple strength espressor with a lot sugar (glucose) in it and a bit of rum "to take the edge off" After a really good solid caffine binge I tend to get a little twitchy, the rum sounds like a good idea, anyone do that? What you really want is alertness but you don't want that hyper caffinated feel.

    Any ginko users? Have you noticed any difference in your mental stimulation? The only herbs I've really noticed a difference with is kava kava and St. John's wort, both of which are very calming and relaxing, a good cup of Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer Plus works wonders after a particularly bad day at work. I've taken ginko before but never noticed any difference, I don't take anything regularly though. I'd imagine that echinecia, ginseng, ginko blends on a regular basis and then some doping a few days before combined with a highly caffinated beverage with a little rum might be about the optimal drug induced hacking session without getting it to really serious stuff. Not that I would encourage that but it would be interesting to know if you ever need that extra "punch" for something really important (like when WWIII breaks out and the need *me* to write the new code to control the bombs or something, I sacrifice my body a little for that job...)

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I'm not a big fan of carbonated drinks overall, but this stuff has SO MUCH caffine in it and so much sugar that I couldn't drink more than a couple sips... The bottle was pretty damn cool tho..
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Guaranine (or Guanine, same thing) is caffeine. Gather round, and let me read from the xanthine book.

    Xanthines are chemical structures related to uric acid. They are processed similarly (By the enzyme xanthine oxidase), so inhibitors of this enzyme are often used in the treatment of gout.

    In any case, the xanthine we know and love, caffeine ((1,3,7)tri-methyl-xanthine), is an adenosine blocker. This is the inhibtory neurotransmitter we talked about earlier. It makes you tired. Blocking it makes you un-tired, but not necessarily stimulated. Caffeine is really an "anti-somnolent" rather than a true stimulant, but it can stimulate the release of adrenaline. Certain xanthines (theobromine, theophylline) are found in chocolate and tea, and as you pointed out, are less potent than caffeine. Dogs process xanthines much slower than humans - thus the chocolate toxicity (which sets in around 200-250 grams, it's quite a bit).

    Cocaine works a little differently. It doesn't block receptors, it inhibits the reuptake of adrenaline and dopamine. By doing this, the brain is flooded with these "feel-good" monoamines. The addictive nature of cocaine lies in its dopaminergic quality.

    So - caffeine isn't very addictive ;). It can, however, be habit-forming, just like anything else. It's really a case of mind over matter - people are used to coffee, so they get headaches without it. I have never experienced withdrawal from any drug, and i've used caffeine, ephedrine, and pseudoephedrine on a semi-chronic basis. Crashing, however, is another matter.
  • Anyone seen these new Snapple "Element" drinks? They have Fire, Water, Earth, Lightning and things along that line.. The Fire (Energy) one has Ginseng, Gaurana, and Ginko Biloba in it, and I bought some today. I have yet to drink it yet.. I threw it in the fridge and went back into town. heh. Some of the others have different "uses" and have different ingredents. Heck, the relaxation one has St. Johns Wort. Another has bumblebee pollen, for who knows what. heh. Anywho, anyone heard of these? And if you have, and tried them, what do you think?
  • So you say you want to get absolutely 'faced, but you can't bear to part with your beloved green can of fluorescent yellow Mountain Dew? Well, look no further. Mt. Dew and Bacardi Limon go fabulously together. You can even make it pretty strong before you taste the alcohol.
  • Actually, the carbonation in the soft drink makes the alcohol get absorbed more quickly.
  • I had a couple of bottles of Bawls _months_ ago. It really wasn't very strong. The bottles are cool though. I keep one on a shelf in my cube. Everyone asks, "What's this? Bawls...?" heh,heh,heh
  • Blue (of http://www.bluesnews.com) has been singing the praises of this stuff for quite a while now. I do too, since my buddy Back East sent me a case for Xmas!! Strange, but tasty and effective. Wonderful mixer!
  • Ever have a rum and coke?
    or Jack Daniels and coke?
  • This is pretty true for me also. I was a heavy coffee drinker until I ended up in the hospital for 3 months and was completely cut-off from any caffeine. When I got out, I had a couple of cups of coffee and felt *terrible*. I quit. I don't even take asprin/tylenol with caffeine if I can help it and I've never felt better in my life.

  • Oh, that sounds great! Gotta stop by the liquor store and then 7-11 on my way home tonite!

  • erk, cough, gag, wheeze!

    What a *horrible* concoction this is!

    Yeech, rather drink battery-acid, I think!

  • They both have those dark-red guarana berries in it.

    Pepsi recently discontinued it, as I am told (this was how I was introduced to it about a year ago).

    Similiar in taste to Cream Soda, but definitely caffinated [sp??] ...

    Josta never gave me a buzz, though (and I've never really cared for coffee, so it's not like I have a high tolerence for caffine).

    ... ANYHOOO ... since it's similiar to Josta (right ??), I'll be trying it if I can get ahold of it ...

  • ...needs some "Bawls". That was the slowest page load I've suffered in a while. :)
  • I've been into powerlifting for several years now. Caffeine and similar stimulants are very common in my sport. The research I've seen indicates that caffeine don't really give much of a strength increase, but it does help create the aggressive mental attitude that leads to good workouts and good lifts.

    I've tried various combinations of natural herbs. The most intense I've found is a combination of Kola Nut and Ma-Huang (sp?). It's usually marketed as an herbal weight-loss formula. Popular brands of this mix include Thermalift, Twinlabs Ripped Fuel, and Formula One. While this formula is "herbal", it's basically a mixture of caffeine and ephedrine.

    Sidebar: At one time, ephedrine was commonly prescribed as an asthma treatment. I'm asthmatic and actually took some as a little kid. My mom says I road my tricycle in a circle on the back porch for an hour straight. :)

    By accident, I've found that the OTC allergy medicine Sudafed, combined with caffeine, has similar effects (on me at least). Of course, the other nice side effect I've found with both ephedrine and Sudafed is that they open up your breathing.

    The downside of these stimulants, as some others have pointed out, is that the stuff DOES burn your system out. I've learned to save it for when I really need it.

    As far as alcohol, the most pleasant natural "buzz" I've felt was coffee and Bailey's Irish Creme. I felt alert but not jittery. Personally, though, I would never use or recommend any alcohol before or during training or competition.

    I've just tried three weeks of St. John's Wort and didn't notice any real difference (grumpy S.O.B. is my usual state of mind anyway). There seemed to be a mild effect with Ginko, but it could have been a placebo effect. I might give it another try.

    Just my 2-cent ramblings. Thanks.
  • How about Corn Nuts' jingle? I was listening to the radio, and all of a sudden I hear these girls singing "Bust a nut! Bust a nut! Everybody loves to bust a nut!" Almost ran my car off the road laughing.
  • > I remember . . . mass predictions that
    > coffee would become a thing of the past. . .
    > I say now what I said then; nothing will
    > replace coffee. Ever.

    Coffee will always beat these drinks in the end
    because they're proprietary; coffee, on the
    other hand, is open architecture.

    Not exactly "Open Source", but you won't get
    sued for patent or trademark infringement if
    you come out with a new coffee product.

    It's nice to see open architecture succeeding
    in the drinkware world.

    Earl Higgins
  • I don't consume caffeine (even Dr. Pepper gives me a migraine) and I'm a fine coder :) My code works and makes sense... Except for once when I had a project that needed finishing by the next day, I satyed up all night without sugar or caffeiene and kinda blacked out at bout 5:30 in the morning because I had been pushing weird hours all week.. I got woke up at about 7 or so and noticed that the project was working, I didn't understand how I did it, or when I did it, and I couldn't make heads or tails out of the code that mysteriously written while I could not rememeber anything, but it worked and I used it :)
  • According to a fabulous book called Buzz, which is about alchohol and cafeine, here's how caffeine works.

    When your neurons fire, they excrete, seemingly as a by-product, a chemical which has an inhibitory neuro-transmitter effect. There are receptors on your neurons which uptake this by-product and it makes it less likely for the neuron to fire. Caffeine resembles this by-product enough for it to lodge in the receptors, but not enough for it to WORK as a signal. So the by-product is less likely to be a signal to inhibit the neuron, and thus the neurons keep firing longer, until the concentration of the by-product is high enough in relation to the caffeine to have the slowing effect. The more caffeine you drink, the more of the by-product you need before your brain stops cycling madly on conections.

    But if you test performance (in some way) of non-caffeine drinking people before a dose of caffeine and after, then give them the same dose for two weeks, and test them again, you find that the second test of the second set is identical to the first test of the first set. That is, they've completely adjusted to the caffeine.

    So after two weeks of constant dosage, you're not getting anything out of it. You're only suffering the effects of not getting it. So the way to get a buzz out of caffeine is to not drink it when you don't need it. OR DRINK A LOT WHEN YOU DO.

    But guanine (the active ingredient in guarana) isn't caffeine. It resembles it a great deal, just as the caffeine-like substances in chocolate do (there's also honest-to-goodness caffeine in chocolate). One caffeine-like substance in chocolate is much less potent than caffeine (7 times less?) -- but that's made up for by the fact that there's many times more of it in chocolate than there is caffeine.

    So here are a few questions I don't know the answer for: how potent is guanine compared to caffeine per miligram? Is bawls quoting by effect or weight?

    And, since guanine is related to caffeine and cocaine (this is a general description I've seen) does it have an addictive quality?

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